Conrad wants 'one last attempt' at big cliff deal

12/23/12 11:17 AM EST

Retiring North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad said Sunday he hopes the "stripped-down" proposal that President Barack Obama offered to Republicans on Friday won't be the one that Congress passes, pushing instead for a deal that also tackles the debt.

“I would hope that we would have one last attempt here to do what everyone knows needs to be done, which is a larger plan that really does stabilize the debt and gets us moving in the right direction," the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said on "Fox News Sunday."

He suggested that the two sides meet in the middle with a plan that averages out the offers made by the president and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) before talks fell apart. "Split the difference, that would be a package of about $2.6 trillion," Conrad said.

"You couple that with the $1.1 trillion that's already been done. That would be close to the $4 trillion needed to stabilize the debt and begin to bring it down."